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Calimba

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A programming language to create music based on the theory of operads and clones.

Copyright (C) 2020--2023 Samuele Giraudo - giraudo.samuele@uqam.ca -

Here is a Discord server for discussions about this language, including help for installation, bug reports, feature requests, and sharing some creations. Welcome!

Quick overview

This program offers a complete language allowing to create music in a functional programming style. Musical phrases can be inserted one into another by using operators coming from clone theory. The program generates and plays PCM files, so that it does not need any specific sound server. It allows us to synthesize sounds and create effects. This language does no depend on any heavy external library.

Calimba interprets and plays files written in the Calimba language. The specifications and the documentation of the language are here.

First examples

Here are some simple and commentated examples illustrating some features of the language:

  • A Calimba program playing a harmonic progression.
  • A Calimba program playing a pattern modified by the composition operation (the fundamental operation of the language).

Versions

Here is the changelog of the different versions.

Installation

The following instructions hold for Linux systems like Debian or Archlinux, after 2022.

Dependencies

The following programs or libraries are needed:

  • pkg-config
  • make
  • ocaml (Version >= 5.0.0. An inferior but not too old version may be suitable.)
  • opam
  • ocamlbuild (Available by opam install ocamlbuild.)
  • ocamlfind (Available by opam install ocamlfind.)
  • extlib (Available by opam install extlib.)
  • menhir (Available by opam install menhir.)

Building

Here are the required steps to build the interpreter calimba:

  1. Clone the repository somewhere by running git clone https://github.com/SamueleGiraudo/Calimba.git.

  2. Install all dependencies (see the section above).

  3. Build the project by running make.

This creates an executable calimba. The following sections explain how to use it.

User guide

This page contains the description of the Calimba language.

Calimba program files must have .cal as extension. The main command is

./calimba [--help] [--version] --file PATH [--verbose] [--bunch START LEN] [--text] [--write] [--draw] [--play]

where

  • --help prints the short help.
  • --version prints the version and other information.
  • --file PATH sets PATH as the path to the Qlusster program to consider.
  • --verbose enables the verbose mode.
  • --bunch START LEN specifies the part of the generated signal to consider, with its starting time START and length LEN in seconds.
  • --text creates the CAL file containing the processed expression specified the program.
  • --write creates the PCM file specified by the program.
  • --draw creates the SVG and PNG files specified by the program.
  • --play plays the signal specified by the program.

Standard library

The standard library contains definitions of synthesizers (trying to mimic some existing ones), effects, scales, transformations (repetitions, chords, let ring constructions), and randomization tools.

Documentation of the standard library

TODO

Miscellaneous

To get the syntax highlighting in the text editor vim for the Calimba language, put the file cal.vim at ~/.vim/syntax/cal.vim and the file cal.vim at ~/.vim/fdetect/cal.vim.

Theoretical aspects

Functional programming style

All are expressions: notes, assemblies of notes, sound transformations, etc. For this reason, it is possible to build complex expressions by nesting some smaller ones, without any particular restriction. Besides, let in expressions can be used to write concise code, where names have restricted scopes.

Expressions and compositions

Any expression reduces to a simple expression, the fundamental data structure of Calimba programs. Simple expressions are then converted into sounds. Given some expressions, it is possible to assemble these in order to build a bigger expression. This operation is fundamental in the Calimba language. Following its use, this operation allows us to specify short patterns and consider some slight touch ups of these in order to include these in full musical compositions.

Bibliography

  • About operads:

    • M. Méndez. Set operads in combinatorics and computer science. Springer, Cham, SpringerBriefs in Mathematics, xvi+129, 2015.

    • S. Giraudo. Nonsymmetric Operads in Combinatorics. Springer Nature Switzerland AG, ix+172, 2018.

  • About representation of music:

    • P. Hudak, An Algebraic Theory of Polymorphic Temporal Media. Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3057, 2004.